Language guide

Turkish Names: Meanings, Origins & Traditions

Turkish names are recorded here in the modern Turkish Latin alphabet, which replaced the Arabic-based Ottoman script in 1928. Because Ottoman Turkish absorbed a large Arabic and Persian vocabulary, many familiar Turkish names, such as Elif or Emir, go back to Arabic or Persian words, while others, such as Arslan or Aynur, contain native Turkic elements. Each entry states which of these applies, based on the cited sources.

Türkçe

Oghuz branch of the Turkic language family

Published names: 7961
Scripts in our data: Latin
ISO 639-1: tr

Browse Turkish names

581 names · page 23 of 25

Güntürk
“sun Turk”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Güntürkün
“sun of the Turk”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Günvar
“sun-like”
From Turkic and Persian · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Günver
“sun giver”
Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Günyeli
“east wind”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Günyıl
“sun year”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Günyol
“sunlit road”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Günyüz
“sun face”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Gür
“abundant; vigorous; woodland”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex1 syllableEditorial
Gürak
“very white, pure”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Gürakan
“strongly flowing”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Gürakın
“vigorous onrush”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Güral
“vigorous scarlet”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Güran
“vigorous moment”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Gürarda
“vigorous Arda”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial

Gürata
“mighty ancestor”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Güray
“vigorous moon”
Turkish
Unisex2 syllablesEditorial
Gürbaş
“vigorous chief”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Gürbaşkan
“mighty chief”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy3 syllablesEditorial
Gürbay
“vigorous lord”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Gurbet
“life far from home; stranger”
From Arabic · Turkish
Girl2 syllablesEditorial
Gürboğa
“vigorous bull”
From Turkic · Turkish
Unisex3 syllablesEditorial
Gürbüz
“sturdy, robust”
From Turkic · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial
Gürcan
“vigorous soul”
From Turkic and Persian · Turkish
Boy2 syllablesEditorial

How Turkish names are written

Modern Turkish uses a 29-letter Latin alphabet introduced in 1928. Letters such as ç, ğ, ı, İ, ö, ş and ü matter for spelling: Gülnur and Gulnur are different spellings, and the dotless ı is a separate letter from i. Search on this site ignores these marks, but entries always show the documented spelling.

Where Turkish names come from

A name used in Turkish is not automatically Turkish in origin. Here is how the documented origins of the Turkish names published so far break down (a name with elements from two languages counts under both):

Turkic
4158
Arabic
2170
Persian
1209
Greek
42
Mongolic
39
Hebrew
28
French
14

Counted from 7961 published entries. Each name page explains its own etymology with sources.

Turkish names by meaning

Turkish belongs to the Oghuz branch of the Turkic languages, together with Azerbaijani and Turkmen. Related languages share many words, but a name is listed under a language only when it is documented there.

Other languages: Uyghur · Kazakh · Kyrgyz · Uzbek · Tatar · Bashkir · Tajik

References for this page

Wikipedia contributors. Turkic languages. Wikimedia Foundation, revision 1377797900. Accessed 2026-10-28. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.
Wikipedia contributors. Turkish alphabet. Wikimedia Foundation, revision 1381762599. Accessed 2026-10-28. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.